La juive
- Emperor Sigismund ( mute role )
- Cardinal John Brogni, President of the Council of Constance ( bass)
- Imperial Prince Leopold (Tenor)
- Eudoxie, his wife, niece of the Emperor (soprano )
- Eleazar, a wealthy Jewish jeweler (Tenor)
- Rachel, his daughter (Soprano)
- Ruggiero, Chief Justice of Constance ( baritone)
- Ladies and gentlemen, clergy, officers, soldiers, guards, heralds, heralds, hangman, people
La Juive ( " The Jewess " ) is an opera in five acts by Jacques Fromental Halévy to a libretto by Eugène Scribe. La Juive is considered the most important work Halévy.
Action
The plot of the opera is set in Konstanz at the time of the Council of 1414. Political events of this turbulent time determine the fate of the characters. The focus of the Jewish goldsmith Eleazar and his daughter Rachel.
Was preceded by the following story: living in Rome Jewish goldsmith Eleazar was the daughter of the magistrate Brogny rescued in a raid Neapolitan troops from the flames, although had his two sons put to death. Eleazar pulls the girl without his knowledge as his own daughter, Rachel, in the Jewish faith and takes it as an exile with to Constance. The goldsmith has become because of this history, hard, dogmatic and inflexible and bent on revenge. Meanwhile Brogny, came after the supposed loss of his family by the fire in the clergy and went up to Cardinal, came to Constance. There he is to open the upcoming council.
Because he by his audible hammers work the rest of the prescribed because of the opening of the Council Christian holiday breaks, Eleazar shall be punished as a heretic, the United Vogt calls the death for him and his daughter in a quick judgment.
Rachel has to be the only pretends Jew, but in reality is the Christian kingdom of Prince Léopold in love with a man. On top of that Léopold is married to Eudoxie, the niece of the Emperor. Out of jealousy Rachel denounced her lover as a seducer and a cited by Cardinal Brogni Tribunal sentenced the couple and Eléazar to death. Rachel is persuaded by the plea of Princess Eudoxie to withdraw their accusation against Léopold and thus obtained his pardon. You could even stay alive by conversion to the Christian faith, but she opts for the common death with her supposed father. At the moment of her cruel death in a boiling kettle Eléazar revealed the former magistrate and current Cardinal Brogni Rachel's true identity: she is his long-lost daughter, who had once saved Eléazar unnoticed from a conflagration. While Eléazar triumphantly goes to his death, Brogni collapses. (see the similar situation in Lessing's " Nathan the Wise ").
Performance history
The story was as a memorial to the conflict between Christianity and Judaism. From Giuseppe Verdi as well as estimated by Richard Wagner, La Juive became the series success: Until 1893 it was performed alone at the Paris Opera 550 times.
In the era of National Socialism, in which the composer was ostracized as a Jew, she disappeared from the game plan. We still find the opera rare entrance into the repertoire.